Three-time Olympic gold medalist with the Canadian Women’s National Hockey Team Gillian Apps provided an inspiring speech on Saturday in Wallaceburg.
Apps was the key note speaker for the 36th annual Wallaceburg Sports Hall of Fame dinner and induction ceremony.
“I have been in Wallaceburg since 2 p.m. this afternoon and it is so evident to me how amazing your community is here and I think you guys should give yourselves a round of applause because it is incredible,” Apps said.
“I truly mean that. I have been to a lot of different communities in Canada. I have been very fortunate to meet a lot of amazing people across this country and I think just as a testament to your community. I flew into Detroit and somebody came to pick me up. We got a flat tire on the way, it was fine, and dropped me at my hotel. When I was at my hotel, someone came and picked me up and brought me here tonight. Someone is driving me home to my hotel and back to the airport in Detroit tomorrow morning. So I have never received that kind of treatment anywhere I have gone and I didn’t ask for it, it was offered to me. So thank you very much. It says a lot about your community and I am very, very honoured to be here.”
Apps won gold medals in Torino in 2006, Vancouver in 2010 and Sochi in 2014.
“I think about those medals…. they are so different,” Apps told the crowd on Saturday.
“People often ask me which games were my favourite or, what medals do I like the most. It is so hard for me to answer that because Torino was my first. As a little kid growing up I wanted to go to the Olympics. I wanted to be a Canadian Olympian and wear the maple leaf on my chest and I got to do that.”
Apps added: “In 2010 we were in Vancouver which as an athlete to experience a home games is something not a lot of athletes get to do. I have to tell you, we rocked. Canada was awesome I have to say. I truly felt a wave of support from coast-to-coast as an athlete. It was incredible. I am always proud to be Canadian, but I really felt it in Vancouver.”
Apps said winning the gold medal by beating the U.S. team in OT during the Sochi Olympics was an awesome experience as well.
“I saw all the videos of radio stations, people jumping up at bars across the country, schools and I thought ‘oh my gosh, this is incredible’. We literally just united the nation and I couldn’t be prouder to be Canadian than that,” she said.
“To my family, to my home town and to my teammates. I think that is something that when I talk about people, all of my memories of the Olympics, all of my memories about representing Canada are all about the people that got me there and the people that were with me along the way.
Apps added: When you talk about receiving my gold medal, I think about looking down the blue line and seeing all of my teammates receive their gold medal and I know that every single person had a different path to get to where they were. Some people where the best people on their team since they were 5-years-old and they were just all the way to the National team. Some people got cut time and time and time again and they persevered, they were up for the challenge and they made it. Some people went through injuries, it is the same thing at work. We have things that we hit brick walls and do you go through them, do you stop or you go over them.”
“Everyone in this room is here to support somebody or support somebody they have helped or thank somebody that helped them along the way. So I think that is such a big lesson that I learned through sport is all the people that helped me along the way to get to where I was.”
Apps said besides winning the games, the Opening Ceremonies are her favourite memories from the Olympics.
“In Torino, I will never forget, I walked in and I was so proud when they said Canada. Waving. My parents and my family were in the stands. Waving at the TVs to all the people at home. Thinking of myself as a kid on the couch watching this when I was little. Then I sat down and thought, ‘this is awesome’,” she said.
“Then they announced Italy. I have to tell you, we were in an old soccer stadium and it held about 80,000 people and the place went crazy. It gave me goosebumps and I am not Italian. I thought to myself ‘this is going to be us in four years. This is going to be us in Vancouver’. Sure enough fast forward to Vancouver and we were all together in our crazy outfits underneath the GM Place. They had introduced every single country and than they said Canada. We walked out this ramp and walked out and the place went crazy.”
Apps added: “It was by far my favourite Olympic memory. It truly brought everything together with all of my teammates and again it was all about people and about this country and how absolutely incredible it is to be from Canada and to represent Canada paying the sport that I love.”
It was a packed house at the UAW Hall on Saturday for the annual event in Wallaceburg.
Here are the people who were inducted into the Hall of Fame this year:
– Mark Childs, builder
– G&B Sports 1983 OASA Oldtimer Slow Pitch Champions, team
– Josh McNaughton, Dan Bertrand Memorial Award of Excellence – Male Athlete
– Jaime Gittens, Marion and Bill Chinnick Memorial Award of Excellence – Female Athlete
The annual award winners this year included Jonah Pataki, Ric Vancollie, Torri Handsor, Casey McGee, Penny and Bob Bishop and Brad Maxim.
For a complete biography of each inductee and each winner, check out this story: Bios for 2017 Wallaceburg Sports Hall inductees and winners
